Miles Davis was not someone who would have been considered a “gear head,” said Billy Buss, an associate professor in the brass department at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Davis did not often obsess over his equipment. Rather, the trumpet was merely a “vessel for his artistic expression,” Buss said, and Davis would play whatever instrument allowed him to do that.
“These days, everybody is looking for: What’s the coolest mouthpiece? What brand is going to help me be a better trumpet player?” Buss said. “Miles Davis was not about that. It was very much: I’m a trumpet player, and I’m an artist, and this is my sound, and I’m going to sound like Miles on any instrument.”
For much of his career, that instrument was a Martin Committee trumpet, along with an accessory that became a hallmark: a stemless Harmon mute, which, as Ian Carr wrote in his biography of Davis, was used to “express the most delicate nuances of feeling,” with a timbre that was “round and full.”
At the time that Davis was developing his sound, in the 1950s, jazz was all about “higher, louder, faster” forms of music, Buss said. But Davis was no follower, and his more subdued style was distinct.
In a 1989 interview, Davis said he liked playing the trumpet with a mute because it “sounds human, sounds like a voice.” The result was that his music was haunted by a sort of cool lyricism.
The Martin Band Instrument Company went out of business in 2008, but some of Davis’s trumpets are still kicking around. In March, one of his custom-made Martin Committees, which was made around 1980 and featured a black lacquered finish and gold-plated hardware, went to auction. It sold for more than $1.6 million.
— Scott Cacciola
